It felt good to be back at work. The hard, manual labor was great for keeping my spirits up, and I'd get home at the end of each day feeling tired, but in a good way. You don't know how good sleep can be until you spend a day toting twelve-inch blocks back and forth in the hot, Virginia sun. Unfortunately, sleep wasn't in the cards for me. I would stay up watching TV every night with a gun in my lap.
Jess was putting in long hours waiting tables at The Huntington, and she was bringing home a good deal more money than me. Bronson spent his hours going from one windowsill to the next chasing the sun. Whenever Jess and I would curl up together on the couch to watch a movie the little guy would force his way between us where he'd get comfortable and fall asleep. Even though we couldn't be together very often we were feeling like a family, and I was loving every minute.
Jess worked weekends, but I was off most Saturdays and every Sunday. Sometimes on weekends I'd sleep most of the day, but one sunny Saturday I woke around eleven in the morning to the sound of Jess's phone ringing. I got up and glanced at the mirror on the bedroom door to confirm that I looked like a wreck as I went to answer it. When I finally reached the phone I was surprised to hear Nate on the other end.
"Sorry to wake you, Brian. I didn't think you'd be asleep or I'd have called later. Why don't you give me a call back when you're up and around," he said.
"Oh no, it's no problem at all, man. Is everything okay?"
"Oh yeah, everything's just fine. Just thought you might like to head into town to grab a bite to eat is all. Are you at home?"
"Actually, this is Jess's number. I spend more time here than at my place lately. But yeah, I'm definitely good for food. Give me a half an hour to get myself together and we can head out. If you want, we can just meet here and go from there."
I was actually excited to hear from Nate. I really didn't have any friends, and thought it would break up the monotony of my life a little. Plus, Nate knew nothing about my ordeal with Jeff and Alicia, which meant it wouldn't come up in conversation, and that sounded great to me.
I gave Nate directions to Jess's house, took a quick shower and threw on an old pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. He showed up thirty minutes later looking as much like a geek as ever. He knocked at the door with that "shave and a haircut, two bits" rhythm, as if to drop an exclamation point on his awkwardness.
"This is a great little place you guys have here. No wonder I haven't seen your car back on Montrose for a little while," said Nate as he made his way to the couch.
"Yeah, Jess lucked out when she found this place."
I switched off the TV and stepped into the kitchen to feed Bronson, who wouldn't shut up until food was in his dish and on the floor.
We decided to grab some fast food at Wendy's. I ordered a number one combo and Nate decided to go with a number six. You know a restaurant expects their customers to be of the lowest sort when they don't even require food to be ordered by name. Just call out a number between one and ten and a hot meal's on the way. Even a well-trained dog could make it happen.
I found that Nate and I had quite a lot in common as we sat talking over our lunch. For one thing, the guy was crazy about boxing, and seemed to know more about the history of the sport than I did, and that's saying something. Apparently his great-grandfather was a heavyweight fighter in New York City back in the day and was making a name for himself when the Second World War swept him off to die for our freedom. He told me a story about one of his great-grandfather's fights that I could tell he'd told about a thousand times.
His great-grandfather, also known as "Iron Jaw Smith," was undefeated with ten professional victories under his belt about the age of twenty-one, when a heavyweight by the name of John "Crusher" Jones with the same record burst onto the scene. The two were set to square off in the Big Apple in the middle of a hot July before a decent crowd. It wasn't going to be front-page news or anything, but it was a bigger audience than either of the two bruisers had seen before.
The two prospects met for the first time at a pre-fight conference. Smith said little the entire time, mostly just answered questions from the media in as few words as possible. Jones was the exact opposite. The cocky fighter talked trash from the minute he walked into the room, half to build hype for the brawl and half in real disdain for his opponent. Both fighters knew that boxing fans would gladly reach into their wallets to see a rising star with an eleven and oh record and that a ten and one mark would basically set the losing boxer at square one again in the court of public opinion.
They got together to settle things in a New York City gymnasium during one of the hottest summers the city had ever seen. When the fighters met face to face in the center of the canvas, Crusher was bouncing up and down and pivoting his head in circles. Iron Jaw stood still as an anvil and let his eyes follow Crusher's. Crusher Jones was white as a sheet and had six inches and twenty pounds on Iron Jaw. The papers had dubbed Crusher Jones "The Pale Giant."
The referee was a small fellow with thinning blonde hair that he had combed across his head in a sad attempt to cover a bad case of male pattern baldness. It was like a drug dealer planting a single pine tree in the middle of his marijuana crop so that helicopters wouldn't spot it. The fact that he only stood about five-foot-five made the two boxers look less like humans and more like a pair of angry Norse gods. After the ref finished with the whole "let's have a good clean fight" bit, the fighters headed back to their corners, the larger Jones hopping and shadow boxing the whole way as Iron Jaw Smith walked slowly and deliberately.
The bell rang and the fighters headed back to the center of the ring. Crusher came out jabbing, but Iron Jaw kept his guard up and fended off the blows without any trouble. Toward the end of the round Iron Jaw threw a few jabs along with a couple of ineffective left hooks. The two felt each other out for another couple of rounds with neither taking any advantage over his adversary.
Then the bell announced the beginning of the fourth round and all hell broke loose. The two fighters came out swinging like they were being attacked by bees, each landing shots that would have sunk lesser men. Iron Jaw would start to gain control of the fight, and suddenly it'd be Crusher delivering the punishment.
By the eighth round both boxers looked like they'd been in a train wreck, but heavy-handed punches kept flying both ways. Iron Jaw cut the bigger combatant above the left eye with a hard, stiff right, staggering him in the ninth round. But Crusher gathered himself and came back punching harder and harder. One body shot landed by Crusher in the tenth nearly doubled over his winded foe.
At the opening of the eleventh round, both warriors left their corners breathing heavily and dripping sweat and blood. Iron Jaw Smith's right eye was swollen and useless and his lips looked like strips of raw hamburger. The cut above Crusher Jones's left eye had gotten worse, and the waterfall of blood running down the left side of his face had partially blinded him.
When the boxers clashed in the center of the ring, Crusher surprised Iron Jaw with a smashing right cross that sent him reeling across the canvas. Iron Jaw had to grab the ropes to maintain his balance. Crusher could see how badly Iron Jaw was hurt, so he gave chase and caught his adversary against the ropes and put a hurting on the already injured fighter. Iron Jaw kept his guard up but Crusher was finding a way into every hole in Iron Jaw's defense. Somehow, Iron Jaw stayed on his feet through the whole pounding. If that fight had taken place today the referee would've stopped it, but back then a man wasn't whipped until he threw in the towel or died.
Another flurry of combinations landed for Crusher, and Iron Jaw looked to be dead in the water. Crusher Jones backed off of his beaten opponent for a moment to gloat. He threw his hands in the air to celebrate his impending victory. To add insult to injury, Crusher pointed at Iron Jaw and pretended to cry while shrugging his shoulders at the crowd. Then Crusher flexed his right arm and kissed his bicep before stepping toward Iron Jaw again to take care of business. Crusher walked in with his arms by his sides and bumped Iron Jaw w
ith his chest, still making faces to egg on the cheering crowd. Through his mouthpiece, Crusher was yelling, "He's got nothing left! I'm the next champ! I'm the next champ!" He continued to push Iron Jaw around to show just how badly his foe was beaten.
And then something unexpected happened. Crusher leaned in again with his chest, his arms limp at his sides and a huge idiot's grin on his mug. It would be the last thing he remembered before the fight was over. Iron Jaw Smith mustered up every ounce of strength he had left and sent a devastating left uppercut to Crusher's chin, lifting his feet off the mat and sending him to the canvas with a thud. The stunned crowd went quiet for half a second before erupting with applause for the winner, Iron Jaw Smith.
Iron Jaw stepped to the center of the box and raised his right glove toward the sky as trainers, doctors and photographers flooded in around him. When Crusher came to, he stood up and tried to figure out what in the hell had happened. His trainer gave him the bad news and Crusher immediately ran over to the referee and shoved him to the ground while screaming about how he'd been cheated. Crusher demanded an extra round, which of course no one would or could grant him. Eventually, the security staff got Crusher Jones to calm down and escorted him out of the ring. Iron Jaw sat in his corner as the official announcement of his victory was greeted by cheers from the spectators.
The papers gave the sensational fight decent coverage, and within two months a rematch was scheduled at a larger venue. Once again, Crusher ran his mouth throughout the press conferences, but when it came time to fight again, Iron Jaw Smith sent Crusher Jones to the canvas for a ten count in the fourth round. It would be the final fight for either boxer. Crusher Jones retired with a battered ego to disappear into the busy streets of New York City. Iron Jaw Smith was dead within a year, another casualty of the War.
* * *
Nate had a ton of great boxing stories, and hearing him tell them made the ass whipping he put on those fat assholes at The Cavalier a little less shocking. Eventually, our conversation strayed from "the sweet science," to growing up, girls and how much working sucked.
Nate had grown up an hour away in Richmond, where his mother and father had met at a service station and eventually started a family. Nate decided to head for Jefferson after getting a degree in history at the University of Richmond. He met Natalie soon after settling in and married her after six months of dating. They had a kid on the way within a year. Later he landed a good paying job at the local state university in a computer lab, and had been there just over five years.
I told my story about growing up in rural Jefferson as a metal-head who never had much in common with the kids I went to school with. I hung out with a small crew of other metal-heads who also didn't fit in elsewhere. You could easily identify my friends because we all wore the exact same thing to school every day; ripped jeans, a shirt with Slayer, Iron Maiden, Morbid Angel or some other band we idolized plastered on the front, and combat boots. I don't think a single one of us, guy or girl, had hair cut any higher than our shoulders, and mine hung to the middle of my back.
When I left high school behind I started working at a local restaurant/karaoke bar doing dishes. Every single night some drunken college kid would weave his way to the mic and choose an old hit by The Tokens called "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," which is full of high notes rumored to cause bleeding of the ear. And the drunks that always took to the stage couldn't even carry a pitch on the low notes. It usually came across as an out-of-tune squeal, like a tied-up pig being whipped to death. I only lasted at that job for a couple of weeks before walking out in the middle of a shift. Actually, to be more accurate, I ran out.
Since then I'd been working construction for my uncle's company, which wasn't so awful as far as jobs go. It was hard work, and the sun seemed like it was trying to melt me sometimes, but there was freedom with the job. Freedom to take off when I felt like it and freedom to be myself when I was there. Plus, it didn't require me to wear a ridiculous costume with a company logo stitched onto the right tit.
After a while Nate and I were talking about girls we had dated and I ended up tossing Alicia's name into the conversation. I don't know if my subconscious needed to vent a little or what, but the cat had left the bag, so I did my best to tell him the whole account. Well, the whole account minus the werewolves. Telling a new friend about all the times werewolves have attacked you isn't the best way to keep that friend around for long. He listened to the entire tale before asking a question.
"So this nut Jeff is still out there on the loose?"
"Yep. Officer by the name of Matheson's been on the case since he went missing, but hasn't been able to come up with the first damned clue as to where he might be. He keeps saying that Jeff's most likely fled the area, and it has been quiet, so I'm thinking he's probably right."
"Well, if there's anything I can ever do to give you and Jess a hand you just say the word," said Nate, who I now knew was pretty damned handy in a fist fight.
"Will do, but I'm just hoping all of this is going to blow over and that they'll get the bastard locked up again soon," I said. "Hopefully they'll find him in another state and lock him up there. The more miles between us the better."
Nate gave me a reassuring nod and we both sat and ate in silence for a few minutes. It seemed my thoughts were being occupied by Jeff the Werewolf more and more frequently, regardless of the fact that he was seeming more and more like a thing of the past. I had an urge to fast-forward to the end of the movie of my life to see who was going to win, if anyone. I thought that in some ways getting eaten alive would be better than wasting my time dwelling on my fears.
As I finished off my last french fry, Nate threw out an invitation for Jess and I to join he and Natalie at their place for dinner. I was a little nervous about meeting Natalie, especially at their place, because there would be no easy escape route if things got uncomfortable. I realized that Nate wasn't just some bible-thumping geek with a love of Audis, but I still wondered if Natalie was. If so, I didn't know how long I'd last before accidentally offending her with a curse word or a Jesus joke, two things I hold dear. I considered declining the invitation, but didn't want to be a dick. And after all, Jess would be there to keep me in line.
"Hell yeah, man, thanks for the offer. I think Jess is off this Thursday night, so I'll see if she's up for it."
"Sounds good to me," said Nate through a smile. "I better get you back home so I can go help Natalie wrangle the kids. You ever thought about having any little-ones, Brian?"
"Oh, hell no! I've got to get my own head straight before I start molding young, impressionable minds." We both laughed.
"I think you'd make a fine dad."
"Well, spend some more time with me, then we'll talk some more."
We talked about past fights we'd been in on the way home, and Nate had some pretty funny stories. He had a bit of martial arts training in his pocket, but had been forced to learn to fight so that kids like me wouldn't beat him up at school every day. We laughed about bloody noses and broken fingers until I stepped out of the car and waved goodbye.
CHAPTER 18
I asked Jess to meet me at my place since the Mustang was next best thing to being out of gas, and I was in no mood for pushing a car. I was stretched out on the couch reading a faded copy of The Abandoned, a graphic novel about zombies, when Jess walked through the door. She was wearing a dark red dress that came down to just above her knees which did amazing things for her figure. Not that she needed any help in that category, but the dress accentuated all the places I liked best about her. Jess looked like she'd just bought a thousand shares of stock in cleavage.
"Are you seriously reading a book about monsters?" she asked. "Haven't you been getting enough of that crap in real life lately?"
I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled.
When she got close enough for me to reach her, I grabbed her arm and pulled her down on top of me. I was doing my damnedest to molest her, but she started tickling me and I started laughing and
lost my grip.
"I didn't go through all the trouble of getting dolled up just so you could go and mess it up to get your kicks, cowboy."
I smiled at her the way a wolf might smile at a chicken and she got to laughing.
"And just look at you. How many days in a row can you wear those jeans? And just how many Iron Maiden T-shirts can one guy own?"
"Way I see it jeans don't need to be washed until they get crunchy. And these are still bending at the knees just fine, so I'm good. And Iron Maiden rules."
"Well maybe they do, but they're certainly not helping you look any less like a bum. But at least you're a good-looking bum with a decent sense of humor."
"As long as you're okay being seen in public with me I'm just fine with that. I've been dressing like this since I was fifteen, so it'd be one hell of a tough habit to break. You know what they say about old dogs and new tricks."
"Actually, I don't mind at all. This outfit's kind of endearing in a scruffy sort of way. I'm just happy you haven't turned into an asshole. Yet," said Jess.
"Me?" I asked with an innocent smile on my face.
"Yes, yet. But not because you're you, because you're male. You guys are all like butterflies, except in reverse."
"Huh?"
"You all go through a metamorphosis when it comes to relationships. When you first meet a girl you're attracted to you put your best face forward until we get to feeling comfortable with you. A girl starts thinking maybe she's met someone to spend the rest of her life with. Then you finally get a woman in bed and soon after you start treating her like shit, or with complete apathy at the very best. A little pussy is all you guys need to go from butterfly to caterpillar. It's a shame, really."
Andy Deane Page 11